by christmas time the world's greatest dead beat. the country that goes into default because threatening to do so has become the new happy toy of the hard right. and because the rest of the country's elected leaders have no way of doing business with each other. it wasn't always this way. so why is it this way now? well, that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. good evening from new york. i'm ezra klein sitting in for the great chris hayes. the ongoing war on the affordable health care is getting hard core. urging citizens to burn their obama care draft cards. of course, there is no such thing as an obama care draft card. you've got to print your own out and pretend and burn that. what if i told you the science

behind it might change the world and help save the planet at the same time? a full discussion of the future of food is coming up. but we begin tonight with breaking news in the middle east north africa and southeast asia where 19 u.s. embassies and consulates are closed tonight due to continued fears of an imminent terror attack. >> we face an ongoing threat from al qaeda and its affiliates. there are individuals and organizations out there that are focused on doing the united states and the american people harm as well as doing harm to our people. >> the embassy and consulate closings span across 21 countries where initially announced on friday along with a worldwide travel alert to u.s. citizens abroad. today, jay carney did his best to hold specifics, but he did confirm the threat is coming from the al qaeda in the arabian

peninsula. and the u.s. took the extraordinary step to close the embassies after it intercepted communications between two top al qaeda leaders. al qaeda's global leader and al qaeda's leader in the arabian peninsula. in which the two men talked about wanting to launch a major attack in the region to coincide with this past weekend's important islamic holiday. nbc news is reporting that according to multiple intelligence sources the key intercepted electronic communication was one in which the two men agreed, they quote wanted to do something big on the 27th night of ramadan, a muslim holiday known as the night of destiny, which was this past sunday. the communications, however, did not give a specific target or method of attack. joining me now, the national security correspondent for the "new york times" and author of the book "the way of the night." the cia a secret army and a war at the ends of the earth. mark, how afraid should we be tonight?

put it bluntly. >> i don't know. sunday came and went and nothing happened. and so it's hard to know. as yesterday the state department extended the closings through of 19 consulates and embassies through the end of this week. it's very difficult to know. it seems like there is specificity around dates. but obviously very little specificity around location and that's caused this broad swath of closures in the middle east in north africa. there were lawmakers who said it could be in europe and it could be in the united states. it's very difficult to know exactly, you know, how scared everyone should be or necessarily how much people should change their behavior. >> well, that is exactly what i wanted to ask you about. you have peter king and he comes out and says it could be in europe and the u.s. and probably going to be in the middle east. and it's hard when you hear something like that sitting at home to know is that simply a lawmaker?

is that a politician kind of blowing up the threat. or is there actually evidence we're looking at a threat particularly to the united states. and i'm curious, we've seen these dramatic embassy closures across the world, is there a hardening of domestic security that would indicate that kind of perceived threat level here at home? >> well, there have been some reports of tightening security at american airports, clearly there's been a hardening of security overseas to some of the embassies that are -- seem to be at greatest risk. i think congressman king's point in a way was sort of illuminated that they really don't know. they're pretty certain this would be an attack carried out by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. this is a group that has carried out attacks in yemen, in saudi arabia, they tried to blow up a transatlantic jet that was descending into detroit. so, you know, it's very difficult to figure out exactly where to defend.

and so therefore, you have this very to some degree vague warning out there saying that people should be vigilant and at the same time, you know, don't change your behavior significantly. >> you were talking about the sort of yemen connection. you know, i think it's a bit confuing when you hear the attacks are attributed to al qaeda. you have al zawahiri. what can you tell us about the relationship between these two men? >> well, i think it's interesting this communication took place between them. we hear a lot about how al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is the sort of -- the affiliate that -- the only affiliate that can do anything anymore and al qaeda in pakistan are to some degree marginalized and he's spending so much time in hiding he can't help run a global organization. this shows the two are in communication and zawahiri has

some influence over them. wuhishi was an aide to bin laden and in many ways ascended the ranks because of bin laden. so he does have that sort of deference to zawahiri. but exactly how these groups relate to each other, it's still difficult to know. it's our understanding that to some degree, the group in yemen is still, you know, directing most of the attack -- its own attacks. it's not necessarily relying on zawahiri to give all sorts of planning guidance. >> thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> sure, thanks for having me on. >> and joining us now is the national security editor for "the guardian" newspaper. and senior correspondent and associate editor at the "washington post" and also the author of "little america: the

war within the war for afghanistan." thank you for joining me tonight. >> good to be here. >> what do we know about the p actual projection capability of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. before this week, before tonight, what did we think their capacity to actually mount an attack? how far did that extend? does it actually extend here? or is it more local capacity? >> well, certainly the bulk of their attacks have taken place in the arabian peninsula, in saudi arabia. but they certainly do possess the ability to strike beyond that. other countries in the persian gulf and as mark was noting to you a little earlier, they certainly have tried, ezra, to strike even further, obviously trying to bring down that christmas day 2009 jet liner headed into detroit. and so they certainly have much broader ambitions than simply the arabian peninsula, but it is that area and north africa where they are believed to have the

greatest network, the greatest ability to carry this out. you look at that map of the countries in which the diplomatic posts are closed through this week. that's their turf. or at least that's the area where they are believed to be the most active and have the greatest networks. >> spencer, this is -- so this is coming out of yemen. i think inso far as folks have heard of yemen lately, we're pounding the country with drone strikes day in and day out. over the weekend, chris hayes actually tweeted a letter that a man in yemen wrote. an open letter to the united states and i wanted to read a piece of to you here. the man wrote, i'm a yemeni engineer. a year ago this august, a drone strike in my village killed my brother-in-law and my 21-year-old nevereeee nephew. the lesson i'm afraid is that

neither the current u.s. or yemeni administrations bother distinguishing friend from foe. and he goes on to say each one of these strikes having a fair amount of collateral damage killing civilians and innocents has created many, many enemies for the united states. what is the sort of support base at this point like for the arabian peninsula? and what sort of effect is our drone warfare having on that? >> it's a great question. and it'd be difficult to answer without being on the ground in yemen. a couple of months ago, i was witness to a really amazing hearing in the senate where a 22-year-old yemeni man testified for the first time that congress heard from someone from one of these countries that the u.s. has been bombing with missiles fired from drones in which he said that the drone strikes have completely reshaped the psychology of everyday yemenis to the point where parents try

to get their kids to behave by saying if they don't go to bed at the right hour, the drones are going to come from them. it was an amazing thing to behold and it would stand to reason that if that kind of psychological impact on people is so great, it would potentially -- it runs the risk for overwhelming whatever backlash we know typically occurs when al qaeda takes over in a certain place and alienates their either former followers or everyday people there. >> and rajiv, is there -- are we seeing effects from the drone war in yemen, at least? a degradation in the capabilities? or is that not as clear? >> no, u.s. intelligence officials say that there have been significant in roads made in trying to take apart the senior levels of aqap. certainly not the same degree of success that the u.s. has claimed to have against a core al qaeda in the frontier regions

of pakistan. but certain officials are getting picked off there. but others remain, you know, at large. their leader, their top bomb maker, the guy most responsible for the new generations of underwear bombs. they're still at large. and we should note that the war against the al qaeda and arabian peninsula is not just a drone war. u.s. special operations forces based out of -- bases or at least kind of forward operating positions in the arabian peninsula have been working with yemeni special forces with saudi special forces among others to conduct attacks against some of those targets. so it's a combination of drone warfare as well as more conventional or at least special operations boots on the ground type activities. >> spencer and rajiv, my thanks to both of you. >> good to talk to you. >> when we return, in the never-ending effort to kill

obama care, republicans have taken themselves hostage. i bring you that in a moment. m. and one really big reason -- the house next door. our neighbor's house was broken into. luckily, her family wasn't there, but what if this happened here? what if our girls were home? and since we can't monitor everything 24/7, we got someone who could. adt. [ male announcer ] while some companies are new to home security, adt has been helping to save lives for over 135 years. we have more monitoring centers, more of tomorrow's technology right here today, and more value. 24/7 monitoring against burglary, fire, and high levels of carbon monoxide starting at just over $1 a day. and now get adt installed for just $99. isn't your family worth america's number-one security company? current adt customers call for special upgrade saveings. after buying two of everything, it was nice to only need one security system -- adt. [ male announcer ] get adt installed for just $99.

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conservatives want young people to believe that signing up for insurance under obama care is just like when antiwar activists burned their draft cards during the vietnam war. only, you know, minus the draft card and being sent to war thing. how the antiobama care campaign has devolved into self-destructive behavior is next. plus, what if we lived in a world where real meat could be made from cells harvested from a living cow. the test tube burger is coming up.

you sir, are you tired of these government bureaucrats saying you should have health insurance if you get sick? are you offended by the idea of getting help if you can't afford health insurance? do you want to take a stand? it's time to burn your obama care draft card. >> we've decided that we're going to torch our own cards and we're going to take the fight against obama care into the streets. >> that is a pitch freedom works is making to americans and it has just tiny little problem, there is no such thing. no such thing as an obama care draft card. there's not even an obama care card. there's no card, no paper at all. there is nothing to burn. so freedom works has had to make their own draft card. you print it out on the website and burn it yourself. so take a stand, good american by burning your freedom works provided obama care draft card that doesn't draft you to do anything.

>> burning the card is a symbol, of course, because there's no card yet. actually freedom works is going to design the obama care card ourselves, put that online, we're going to share it with people in the hopes they will burn it, tear it up mark on it, send it to the irs or congressman. >> you make your own card to burn. the argument freedom works is making, people should refuse to be part of obama care. don't take free government health insurance if it is offered to you. say no. and if you say no and you get sick or get hit by a bus or you light yourself on fire while burning your self-printed obama care draft card, well, that is on you. this is a weird thing that's happened to the campaign against obama care. it began as most campaigns do as a campaign for self-interest. obama care conservatives said it'll raise your taxes and possibly put you in front of a death panel. the fight to keep it from passing was a fight to keep bad things from happening to you.

but it's become something weirder. a campaign of self-sacrifice. the current crop of republican strategies ask conservative congressmen to hit their constituents. governors to hurt their states and conservative activists to hurt themselves. it is a kamikaze mission to stop obama care, a campaign against your own self-interest. take ted cruz and marco rubio's effort to shut down the federal government unless the obama administration agrees to defund the signature piece of legislation. if they manage to gather enough support to make good on the shutdown threat, there is only a painful -- on the republican party. they would have hurt their constituents and their chances of retaking the senate majority in 2014 and obama care, by the way, even if they got their way would still be implemented. and you don't have to take it from me. my "washington post" colleague charles krauthammer is about as antiobama care as they come.

he wrote, if i thought this would work, i would support it. but i don't fancy suicide. it has a tendency to be fatal. in the states, republican governors are saying no to billions of dollars of medicaid money. and sometimes when they say yes and even some of the most conservative republican governors like rick scott in florida have realized what an obscenely good deal the money is and said yes. the republican state legislature say no anyway. that cuts the state off from very badly needed funds, cuts their poorest citizens off from free health insurance they could otherwise get. more over, means the safety net hospitals lose a huge amount of money they were relying on to survive. the result is a poor state, worse off residents and a health system under terrible, terrible financial stress. but at least they've taken a stand against obama care? then there's the campaign to persuade conservatives and everyone else to doom obama care by refusing to accept free or subsidized health insurance and

instead pay the fine and go without coverage. the campaign's probably not going to be a huge hit among the broader public but it might convince hard core conservative activists who will go without health coverage they could have. some of them will get sick or hurt, then what happens to them? over the past couple of years, republicans have responded to minority status by adopting more extreme political tactics. chief among them is hostage taking, threatening to shut down the government or breach the debt ceiling if they don't get their way. but now republicans have done something truly new. they have taken themselves hostage. they're threatening to hurt themselves and their states and their voters and their most committed activists. if democrats don't give them their way on obama care. it's evidence of their extraordinary dedication of the cause to be sure. but also of their increasingly extreme view of how american politics works. coming up -- did allegedly takes performance-enhancing drugs help a-rod be a better baseball player? what proof do we have? that's next.

i'm fighting for my life. if i don't defend myself, no one else will. there's a process, i'm happy the process in due time. hopefully, you know, whatever happens, happens. >> when word came down earlier today from major league baseball that yankees superstar alex rodriguez and a dozen other players are getting suspended

for their alleged drug infractions related to an anti-aging clinic in miami, i thought about one of my favorites and imagined trying to explain the whole steroid scandal to a little dot i assume is an alien. you see the human says we humans are sacks of chemicals who find other chemicals and put inside us to see which humans are the fastest and strongest, but some humans eat chemicals to make them too fast and too strong and win the contest. that does sound bad, says the alien. it's awful says the earthling. is it really all that awful? or is this actually more about taboo to go beyond what's called conduct detrimental to the good of the game? major league baseball said after it learned that players were linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs the league, quote, vigorously pursued evidence to link those to violations of the drug program. baseball must maintain integrity, fairness and a level

playing field. alex rodriguez' 211-game suspension will carry through the end of the 2014 season. but because a-rod is appealing his punishment or in other words because he's challenging the evidence and not going down without a fight, he's playing third base and batting cleanup for the yankees tonight in their game against the white sox. 12 other players will immediately begin serving their 50-game suspensions including all-star nelson cruz, cabrera of the padres. and, look, i get it, cheating is unethical, it's going to be done. but are these even all that performance-enhancing, these drugs? not everybody thinks so. joining me now is the sports columnist for theatlantic.com and also the author of the book "mickey and willie." you have this really thought provoking point, and one of the points you make, for all the talk of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs,

it's actually not an easy case to make that they actually help these players get a really large, unfair advantage. >> i would love to see the evidence. there's only one player that has been positively say it helped, and that is barry bonds who became a greater player after the age of 35 and for the rest of his career. but barry bonds was a lab rat for the most advanced lab in the country. these other guys, who knows what they're taking. do they even know what they're taking? now, you've got rodriguez now accused of taking hgh. human growth hormone. now, i hope somebody from the "new york post" picks this up. that is not a steroid. repeat, not a steroid. and there is no evidence at all that hgh has anything to do with enhancing athletic performance. especially in baseball. >> and on some level, i mean, i guess that would be one of the arguments for taking this seriously. so if these guys are going and becoming guinea pigs and lab rats for completely untested

concoctions in order to -- they hope will make them play better but we don't know the long-term effects of. i guess one argument, this isn't really about what kind of edge they got. it's about trying to deter this behavior to protect them. >> in a sense, yes, i guess you could argue that the real danger is that these guys could be hurting themselves. a decade from now whether there'll be some effects we don't know about. yes, that's true, but it would be -- i think the first time that major league owners had that kind of compassion for their employees, they've been giving them cortisone shots and sending them back out to the field in all sports. >> and when rodriguez was taking these drugs, this was years ago, now, the period of time we're talking about. >> right. >> and before they were being tested for. they were banned. >> back in 2003? >> yeah. >> back in 2003, it was not illegal or rather misdemeanor. and it wasn't against the basic agreement between the players and the owners. whatever he did back in 2003

doesn't count in this. >> but the newer infraction -- >> yes. >> my understanding is that they are -- that he did them but they found out he's not failed the tests they've given him. >> hasn't failed a test. >> just came up through a leaked report. >> right, and we don't know the evidence they have. we don't know exactly what drugs the other players are accused of. and we don't really know specifically what evidence there is that rodriguez took anything at all. i guess we'll find out down the stretch. but god knows that appeal to go to the players association, november, december i heard just before i came in here, that's long before the arbitrator comes up with a decision. >> walk me through the evidence here. because i think a couple of years back in a "wall street journal" piece, you did this interesting analysis of the home run record. and what you said here was that the sort of the relevant metrics to use is runs on the road. >> right. >> because when you're dealing with one stadium, it can affect

it. from '98 to 2000, he had 74 home runs on the road. after being traded to the rangers, he had 70 on the road. >> 70 in all other american league parks, that's really your gauge. what you do in the other parks. he had 86 in texas. looks like a lot, but turns out that texas was such a great hitters' park, everyone had an increase like that. if you go with each ball player that's accused of using the stuff that either did use it or accused of using it and what performance was enhanced by it, you can find out for just about everything like that. but no one does. they look at roger clemens and say, well, when he was 42, you know, he won 15 games. 40 years ago won 23 games a the the age of 42. what was he on? >> this class of sort of baseball greats going back, you know, about 10, 15 years now. almost every one of the sort of leaders of which is now under some kind of scandal report in the hall of fame.

sometimes it seems there needs to be some sort of blanket suspicion on how to deal with -- morally, i don't mean in terms of the infraction. but what happens when they come to the hall of fame. >> well, my guess is that the next generation is simply not going to care as much. what are you going to do? not go to the games? not root for your favorite players because of this? cheating has always been part of the game. and the owners haven't cared that much about it. back in 2005, a famous letter to a congressional said you folks have no jurisdiction here. well, they told them very quickly who had the power and who had the jurisdiction. they threatened to take away baseball's antitrust exemption. that's why we're here now. >> thank you for being here very much. i know we brought you out on a tough night. can we help you make it up? >> i want to say happy birthday to my wife. >> very nice. thank you for being here. and we'll be right back.

imagine being one of the first two people in the world to taste test a hamburger that cost more than $300,000 and took five full years to prepare. that happened today in london and one of the esteemed taste testers first thoughts were, quote, it's close to meat. we'll talk about what the newly unveiled test tube burger is and what it might mean for the future of food next. but first, i want to share the three awesomest things on the internet today. beginning with lifestyles of the rich. according to quartz, the 1% are walking toxic waste dumps, all of uz humans are, but the rich are unique. the news comes from a recent study. or in other words, rich people of higher levels of mercury, arsenic, thanks to the increased

frequency of wealthy americans consuming shellfish and primarily fresh sushi which tends to contain elevated levels of all sorts of chemicals. also doesn't help that the super wealthy are much more likely to have contact with precious metals. >> i'm going to have a treasure! >> nothing like a good treasure bath. as the song says, more money including mercury poisoning. the second awesomest thing. today high finances introduced to the word slam pieces. hollywood continues to glamourize the world of hedge fund management. but this classic cover shows the perception of hedge fund success does not often match the reality. on average do not beat the market, they underperform it. a possible cautionary tale on why was on display at jezebel.com where an e-mailed posted to a fraternity lister gave us a peek into the mind of

the effective hedge fund manager. luckily due to this tough job market, my dad has agreed to let me access my trust fund early, mid seven figures to start a relatively small hedge fund. with my financial expertise, help from my powerful father and connections and a skilled team, i have no doubt this fund will quickly rise to prominent. and we will all get filthy rich and inevitably slam pieces. and the third awesomest thing on the internet, a stark reminder of our place in the universe. this youtube video of a nasa spacecraft passing earth and receding into the distance. it's an awe-inspiring and profound depiction of the grand infinity of space. it's also bit disorienting and i couldn't help but think a representation of forces much larger than ourselves.

when i heard this afternoon "the washington post," where i have worked since 2009 and which i love has been sold to bezos. guys, i was only gone for a day. and reaction to the news and to the glorious majesty of the cosmos, i can only say, whoa. you can find all the links of tonight's "click 3" on our website. and we will be right back.

could've used a bit of salt and fat. could've used some fat. that was the consensus earlier from two foodies given the task of tasting a $330,000 burger. the world's first entirely lab grown patty. it happened today in london, a synthetic hamburger that took five years to develop and three months to produce was cooked and served in front of a moderator and a studio audience. the burger is the work of mark post and a team of researchers based in the netherlands. post hopes that lab made meat can help fight climate change and feed the planet. although he admits it could take up to two decades to get lab meat into supermarkets. the project was bankrolled by the google co-founder who shares similar concerns about sustainability and animal welfare. so how did post get meat to grow in a petri dish? through cattle stem cells organically raised, of course.

>> we take a few cells from a cow, muscle specific stem cells that can only become muscle. there's very little that we have to do to make these cells do the right thing. they divide by themselves, if we provide those anchor points, the future tendons, they will self-organize into muscle. so a few cells that we take from this cow can turn into ten tons of meat. >> what happens when they become self-aware. dr. post makes it sound easy but took nearly 20,000 strands of muscle fiber to make one 5-ounce patty. beet juice was added to give it a more meat-like appearance. a professional chef who used an amazing amount of butter and it held its form while being cooked. >> fantastic color. looks incredibly appetizing and it's beginning to release a nice, inviing aroma. >> then it was time to dig in. the chicago based food writer

volunteered for the job. the pair concentrated on the meat itself foregoing the bun, the lettuce and the sliced tomatoes that were offered them. reviews were mixed. >> there's quite some intense taste. it's close to meat. it's not that juicy. >> the absence is i feel like the fat. it's a leanness to it. but the bite, you know, feels like, you know, conventional hamburger. maybe you could think of it on a continuum somewhere. >> i think it's a very good start. and, again, this was mostly to prove that we can do this. >> joining me now is chef amanda cohen owner of a restaurant here in new york city and chef curtis stone host of "top chef masters" and the bravo series around the world in 80 plates. and the owner and operator of

the design firm and moto restaurant in chicago, illinois. and amanda, i wanted to begin with you. and i'm going to ask all three of you the sail question here. would you serve this in your restaurant? >> i would not serve this in my restaurant. we're an all-vegetable restaurant, it wouldn't have any place. the idea of having this weird mock meat product wouldn't fit in. and i'm not sure even sort of going past that that this is ready to be served in any restaurant yet. >> so assuming it gets ready, assuming we have some technological advances, curtis, how about you? >> i think it's a real shame that we put so much energy and resource into science trying to develop food that is not natural. here in the states, we waste 40% of what comes out of the ground. and if we put more energy into turning our waste around and not throwing great food into the garbage and the food industry's become such a beast that i really think we're really misguided with it.

>> and you run a molecular restaurant. i have seen a lecture you gave in which you made a burger out of, if i remember correctly, beets corn and barley. would you serve the more advanced cousin of this burger in modo? >> well, no, that's like asking if we would use a processor from the 1950s in a phone today. and we did make a burger out of what cows eat so just sort of bypassing the cow altogether. i think it has billions of dollars and a long way to go before it becomes successful to the mainstream. >> so, amanda, one of the interesting things you bring up when you say you're a restaurant that focuses on vegetables, is where actually does test tube grown meat fit on that kind of vegetable meat continuum, right? it's not quite an animal. it's grown off an animal but doesn't have the kind of suffering associated with it.

doesn't have the feeding process. there is something in it that is almost -- it's not a vegetable exactly, but it's in kind of new category. >> it is, it's in a whole different category and for my restaurant or for people who come, eating meat isn't always an ethical thing. sometimes it's a health thing, sometimes it's a political thing, sometimes it's that's their diet. so it's almost like this is a whole different diet. it's not about being a vegetarian and not eating like a cow. it's more about, you know, i guess a different way of looking at food. it's a whole different kind of food. it's nothing we've ever seen before. so it wouldn't be on the vegetarian continuum whatsoever. and it's still -- i think it would still be considered eating an animal. it is from an animal no matter how you look at it. it's still a byproduct. >> but curtis, i think there's an enormous kind of ick factor when we're being so deeply introduced to the production process behind this particular burger. i think if you really got people

engaged in the production process behind boca burgers which are mentioned, kind of soy or vegetarian, highly, highly processed burger substitute. if you looked at what's behind the food folks buying in the supermarket every day. it's weirds me out, high level of technology. is this fear of something new? in 20 years, will this be fine? anything else you make in the factory and sell on the supermarket shelves? >> i'm a big advocate for eating what's natural and putting stuff in your body that you actually know where it comes from. and when you look at what science has done for food, of course there's been advances and if it wasn't for scientists then we would nt know how to farm fish. there's definitely a place for science in food, but we also live in a world where diabetes is off the charts and we have all of these, you know, health and diet associated problems in society and it's because we're eating shelf stable processed foods with a lot of sugar and a lot of salt and stuff that's

just out of balance. >> but when i look at the -- when i look at the sort of numbers in terms of how often people eat these foods in terms of the price point a lot of them are at, i always wonder if there's not a tension in the kind of argument curtis makes. i think you hear a lot in the food community, a preference for going back to things we can recognize. foods our grandmothers would recognize. and the sort of way americans eat and i often wonder if the answer to a lot of the problems curtis identified like diabetes and related health issues and some of the cost issues too with getting healthy food won't have to be solved also technologically by sort of advanced, moved processed food and shelf stable food in a healthier direction. >> well, i think when you account for population explosion, the reduced amount of land and resources we're going to have in the future, that's where the scientists are coming from. and so in 20, 30 years, you know, the price of beef is going to be out of reach for most people. so what if you could imagine a piece of colby beef that is

actually healthy for you that doesn't have any detriment for your digestive system or weight gain. things that are good for your body. i think competition is good. that's what gave us smartphones. and at the end of the day, if this product works, it'll work. the consumer will decide and we'll decide what is best for us as a race. >> hamara brought up making a burger that just consisted of what the cow fed on. it's not like people don't have an alternative if they wouldn't like to eat as much meat. they can eat all kinds of vegetable products, a variety of others. is that kind of the bottom line here? people that want to eat meat going to eat meat and you've got the group that's going to go for the things that are really not meat and identify that the moment you see them? >> i don't think we're ever going to get people to stop eating meat.

they're going to want to eat it. i think what we have to do is sort of keep doing what we've been doing for the last 10, 15 years which is that we've been moving away from mass meat consumption. people are choosing their food more carefully. is it organic? is it local? and i think the more that we as sort of a population as a world can move towards that, the less we'll actually have to go towards the technology and maybe save our money and spend it on other things, better vegetables, better meat production versus what's probably going to turn into a billion dollar industry to find this magic, you know, fake burger which is never going to taste as good as the real thing. >> speaking of the real thing, we'll be right back. my mantra?

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axiron can restore t levels to normal in about 2 weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially those who are or who may become pregnant and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs of puberty in children or changes in body hair or increased acne in women may occur. report these symptoms to your doctor. tell your doctor about all medical conditions and medications. serious side effects could include increased risk of prostate cancer; worsening prostate symptoms; decreased sperm count; ankle, feet or body swelling; enlarged or painful breasts; problems breathing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. ask your doctor about the only underarm low t treatment, axiron.

i think most people just don't realize that the current

meat production is at its maximum and it's not going to supply sufficient meat for the growing demand in the coming 40 years. so we need to come up with an alternative. there's no question. this can be an ethical and environmentally friendly way to produce meat. >> that was mark post earlier. we're talking about the world's first lab grown hamburger, what does it mean for the future of food? and could it actually help save the planet? still with me is amanda cohen, curtis stone chef and host of "top chef masters." and joining us now is bruce frederick senior advocacy director at farm sanctuary. and bruce, i want to go to you, you used to work at peta you work with farm sanctuary now. a lot of folks would like, and i believe you're vegan, actually. a lot of folks would like people to stop eating it entirely, but they had for years a million dollar prize if anybody could

create a full sort of chicken substitute, a lab grown chicken meat by 2012. so in that community, the community worried about animal suffering, this has been a goal for some time. >> yeah, i know, that's absolutely right. when people learn about how they're treated on these modern farms, it is so far from natural it's almost unbelievable. they will cram 50,000 chickens into the sheds, there in they're, pumped full of drugs, they grow seven times as quickly as they did 60 years ago so their hearts collapse or their lungs collapse or their legs cripple. the level of abuse is beyond. and it's completely unnatural. when you start talking about test tube meat, it's completely natural, it's growing a food in a test tube and it also takes away all of the animal cruelty. it is significantly more efficient than growing crops to

feed those crops to animals to funnel the food through animals and it is significantly cleaner. they can manipulate -- they can change the genetic composition so that it is not -- doesn't lead to the same levels of diabetes and heart disease and cancer and other things that the current industry is responsible for. >> let me ask you about that efficiency. i think this is it -- we talk and i think it's intuitive to talk about the an animal cruelty question. one of the things that has arisen quite a bit in this discussion is the recognition that meat production and agriculture around it is one of the largest contributors to global warming that it's larger, in fact, according to the united nations than the entire transportation sector. and as india and china and indonesia and the philippines get richer and people begin to eat meat-heavier diets which are associated with being wealthier in these countries, you're going to have in addition to whatever you think about animal cruelty, a green house gas strain that

dwarfs, i think, what people are prepared for and what they're expecting. do you see these sorts of as potentially a way to help answer that question? >> well, yeah, that's absolutely the case. it takes about ten calories in the forms of grains or -- the united nations when they crunched the numbers, they said that eating meat causes 40% more global warming than all trains, planes, cars, automobiles, all forms of transportation combined. so al gore when the global warming survival handbook came out, he said the best thing any individual can do to decrease their contribution to global warming, the best thing they can do is to leave meat off their plate. one of the exciting things is actually even more efficient than vegan foods. so for people who care about their environmental footprint, for people who care about animals, you know, this is a real excellent development.

>> and curtis, quickly before we go. if these cost pressures are as intense as they are and we're dealing with a kind of choice between this kind of test tube meat and, you know, having this kind of greenhouse gas, isn't the test tube meat a better alternative? >> well, i think you bring up an interesting point. when you talk about the price of meat, i think it's a good thing the price goes up. it's something we should respect. we should respect the life cycle of an animal. i don't have the problem with taking the life of an animal if it ends in dinner for someone. but it should be respected. if the price of meat goes up, the consumption comes down and that's also a good thing when you look at what we're facing as a nation and with our dietary problems. >> thank you all for being here tonight. >> thank you, ezra. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. >> that's "all in" for this evening. the rachel maddow show begins now. good evening, rachel. >> thank you, my friend. great job tonight. >> thank you. >> thanks to you at home. i want to say thanks also to ezra but also to melissa harris

perry for filling in while i was on vacation last week. they both did a great job. i'm happy to be back. this is a giant multimillion dollar clock. that is being built in the hills of west texas. it's about 2,000 feet elevation, not sure exactly where in west texas it is, but it's out about 2,000 feet. it's supposed to stand 200 feet tall. when it's done, this clock is supposed to keep time for 10,000 years. apparently the plan is that every year for the next 10,000 years, this clock keeping time will go off like a coo-coo clock and play a fresh new sound every year for 10,000 years. it is being built. it was dreamed up by some big thinkers. there are famous big thinkers that are on the board of this project like the great brian eno. they've been working on this